Our Research Lab
The BEAHR Lab conducts research that broadly aims to shift the current biomedical paradigm and integrate a human rights approach in mental health policies and practices. Specifically, their research addresses 1) the ethical and medical-legal issues that arise in organized psychiatry because of academic-industry relationships and 2) the ways in which commercialized science reinforces epistemic injustice and undermines an appreciation for the moral and political context of physical and emotional suffering.
Lisa Cosgrove, Ph.D., the BEAHR Lab Director, is a Clinical Psychologist and Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Boston where she teaches courses on psychiatric diagnosis and psychopharmacology. She was a Research Fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University (2010-2015) and served as a consultant to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, child psychiatrist Dainius Puras (2017-2020). Dr. Cosgrove is co-author, with Bob Whitaker, of Psychiatry under the influence: Institutional corruption, social injury and prescriptions for reform. Her recent publications have addressed the ethical issues that arise with the use of digital phenotyping and digital psychotropic drugs.
Over the last 15+ years, Dr. Cosgrove's research on COI issues and institutional corruption has received significant attention in the national and international media (e.g., The New York Times, Washington Post, The Boston Globe, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Medscape, among others). These media outlets have featured articles on her research, as did CBS Radio Canada and Fox News, among others). Additionally, her work on conflict of interest has been featured in documentary films (e.g., Generation RX; the BBC’s Re-Writing the Psychiatrist’s Bible; another BBC documentary, Medicalising Grief; and on RAI, which is the National Public Television of Italy). Dr. Cosgrove and members of the BEAHR Lab have published in high-impact medical journals (e.g., New England Journal of Medicine; the Lancet, the Lancet Psychiatry; Canadian Medical Association Journal, and Annals of Internal Medicine).
The BEAHR Lab Motto: No pressure, only opportunity.